Thanks to everyone who attended our last event at Google on April 21st, a great evening was had by all. For those who may have missed it we have the presentation [.pdf] from Jaehong Lee, COO of Mikle Inc., uploaded Here.

Meanwhile, mark your calendar for our next event on June 23rd at the always fashionable KDDI Designing Studio in Harajuku with a Texting 2.0 theme. We’ve lined-up an interesting company to demo their touch screen input and translation software and are looking forward to hear from a senior Nuance representative regarding the future roadmap of their T9 predictive text entry product.

Thank you all for coming out to our MoMo Tokyo 2008 Peer Awards event on March 24 at Shinsei Bank. We had a lot of very cool and innovative products presented! Congrats to the three winning companies and thanks to everyone involved for making it such a great evening. The video is now online Here.

Our next MoMo Tokyo event, April 21st, will focus on ‘Solving big problems on small devices - Google’s approach to the mobile internet evolution’. We’re looking forward to welcome our key mobile industry members for what promises to be an interesting presentation.

John Lagerling, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google
John Lagerling is responsible for Google’s mobile business development activities in Japan. He has forged key partnerships with the major carriers in Japan, including NTT DoCoMo and KDDI as well as the major handset manufacturers. In parallel he is responsible for expanding the mobile ad-network in Japan, including partnerships Mobile SNS sites Mixi and GREE.

By all accounts the MoMo Tokyo 2008 Peer Awards held on Monday evening was a fantastic event and we would like to thank everyone involved for making it one of our best gatherings ever. Hearty congrats are in order for the winners and complete respect offered to all of the candidate companies who stepped-up to participate. Honorable mentions for two surprise guest speakers are also in order; Nina Norlund, former biz dev. mgr at HP Bazaar, who helped us get the MoMo Tokyo chapter rolling and Faraz Syed, CEO of Mobile Complete, a past winner at MobileMonday 2007 Global Peer Awards.

We would like to pass along a very special thanks to our esteemed judges; Stephan Burke from Mobile Content Networks, Yurie Horita from Impress R&D, Hitomi Murakami from Seikei University, Masaaki Suga from Cybird Ventures and Martyn Williams from IDG News as well as Patrick Bray from GeoVector who served admirably as our MC for the night. We would also like to offer our most sincere gratitude to the great people at Shinsei Bank who provided an awesome venue, the folks at Infinita who built this groovy mobile voting site and finally, of course, everyone who attended. Yoroshiku!

Heads-up to all innovative mobile start-up companies in Japan: While the 3rd annual MoMo Global Summit in Helsinki last September seems like only yesterday, we’re already looking forward to Kuala Lumpur, in mid-May. The Global Peer Awards will play a central part in the Malaysia Global Summit, so we are calling for submissions from […]

The mobile browser wars are set to heat up in 2008 so it’s a good time for a themed event digging into issues such as user interface and open standards. We have lined-up three really fantastic speakers from W3C and Mozilla.. so Register now and we’ll see you on February 18th, please note this is an “industry only” event, so no recruiters or life insurance sales people need apply. Also, we are starting to get some great companies coming online for the MoMo Tokyo 2008 Peer Awards, more Details Here.

Welcome to the Year of the Mighty Mobile Mouse..!! Chances are it’s been a hell-rush for everyone coming back to work here last week. We hope you had a super holiday season and are ready for what should be a great 2008! We’re looking forward to connecting with you for a few sociable drinks - and plenty of networking - on Jan. 28 in Harajuku. This MoMo is an ‘Open-To–All’ event - see full details for venue location, etc. below.

Your faithful MoMo Tokyo organizers are working on our event plans for the coming year, feedback on themes, speakers and potential locations is always welcome. We intend to announce upcoming MoMo dates with plenty of notice so members can juggle their busy schedules accordingly. Watch for updates coming soon – and mark MoMo on Feb. 18 in your calendar!

December 13, 2007 — Helsinki, Finland and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — MobileMonday (MoMo), the global community of over 70,000 mobile industry visionaries and developers, today announced it will invite the worlds most exciting and innovative mobile companies to attend the 4th annual Global Summit in Kuala Lumpur from May 18 - 22, 2008. MobileMonday’s unique cross-border platform has proven to generate real business opportunities via cooperative relationships with the Open Mobile Alliance and GSMA, which represents 700 mobile operators and 200-technology partners worldwide. The upcoming event, the first ever to be held in Asia, will be co-located with the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2008) conference to be held in Malaysia.

Kuala Lumpur is set to be the point of convergence for the largest-ever gathering of global leaders and decision makers on information and communications technology. Held once every two years, WCIT is the premier global forum that brings together leaders in business, government and academia to impact economic and social development through the exchange of policies and ideas on technology. WCIT 2008 is expected to be the point of convergence for more than 2,500 participants from over 80 countries worldwide. Keynote speakers are expected to include some of the most respected and admired names in the industry. WCIT 2008 is jointly organized by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) and the Assoc. of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia, with the support of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation Malaysia.

Thanks to all for attending MoMo Tokyo on Dec. 3rd, we hope you enjoyed the Mobile TV theme & 2nd free drink on behalf of our generous sponsors.

As mentioned we are thrilled to co-organize, with the Mobile Content Forum, a special seminar series to be held on the afternoon of Friday Dec. 14th. Speakers information - note all presentations will be in Japanese - and advance registration is now available Here. Those who can’t make it during the day are still most welcome to attend the evening mixer afterwards. We look forward to see you there!

A quick shout-out to everyone we met during last weeks APAC adventure. We hit MoMo in Singapore, thanks to the good folks from iDA and location hosts at Microsoft, toured Kuala Lumpur over the week-end with RamG and Co. to conclude details for a major announcement regarding our 2008 Global Summit - details coming soon - and then off to Jakarta for the launch of Indonesia’s chapter. Andy and his team did an outstanding job pulling everything together for that and no doubt there will be plenty of photos coming online soon.

Thanks again for your kind hospitality and Welcome Aboard Indonesia..!!

Meanwhile, heading into year-end here and, aside from doing taxes, we are planning our events schedule, including a not-to-be-missed Shinnenkai for 2008. Stay tuned for more details.

Update: Thank you for coming out to MoMo on December 3rd. We hope you have enjoyed the Mobile Video theme and the 2nd free drink on behalf of our generous sponsors. As mentioned during the event, we have a special seminar to be held together with MCF on the 14th, next Friday afternoon. Presentations will all be in Japanese. Speakers information and registration, is now available via the Japanese MoMo site. See you there!

Thanks to everyone who attended our November 12th Smartphone Series event at the Canadian embassy — nearly 200 came through the doors — we have posted video of the presentations from RIM and HTC for those of you who were unable to attend. The Powerpoints are also available Here.

A quick heads-up, Mobidec 2007 will be running all day at Meguro Gajoen on November 27th. Co-organised by MCF, this “Strategy for Mobile Economy” themed event - conducted entirely in Japanese - with feature presentations from the main operators, will cover topics ranging from Flash to WiMax.

On 3 December we’re back at the fashionable KDDI Designing Studio with a mobile video theme. As 2008 promises to be a break-out year for broadcast television and on-demand video streaming in Japan we expect this event will be both insightful and very well attended.

Kazuhiko Masuda - President - MediaFLO Japan Planning Inc.
Kazuhiko Masuda was appointed President of MediaFLO Japan Planning Inc. in 2005. After KDDI’s merger, he has worked in the handset planning, sales planning, and global business planning section. Before 2000, he worked in the development of infrastructure. Kazuhiko Masuda joined DDI (currently KDDI) in 1987.

Takeatsu Yamauchi - Director Advanced Services - NHK
1Seg is the mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting system in Japan. Based on the ISDB-T standard, which was designed by NHK, each channel is divided into 13 segments plus one segment for separating channels. HDTV broadcast occupies 12 segments, and the remaining (13th) segment is used for mobile receivers. Thus the name, ‘1seg’. Utilizing the BML (Broadcast Markup Language) methodology, text and graphic images with links for further information, such as news, sports, weather forecast, program guides and voting is also displayed along with the TV content. This popular mobile service officially launched on April 1, 2006 and has just over 13M enabled handsets deployed as of August 2007.

Date: Monday, 3 December 2007 :: 18:30 - 22:30
Venue: KDDI Designing Studio — GMAP
Admission: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration - OR - ¥2,000 at the door
Complimentary drink ticket for the 1st 200 pre-registered guests!

18:30 - Doors Open
19:00 - Welcome/introduction
19:15 - First presentation
19:45 - Second presentation
20:15 - Q & A
20:30 - Networking
22:00 - Last Call
22:30 - Close

日本語版

Many thanks to all who attended our October 22nd event, the presentations are now available Here for download, it was super to everyone. A quick “welcome aboard” going out to the folks in Moscow and Frankfurt who held their debut gatherings on that very same evening and Madrid just launched last night - Congratulations - we wish you the very best going forward.

MoMo Tokyo returns to the ultramodern Canadian embassy venue for our upcoming Shichi-Go-San event on 12 November with presentations coming from smartphone makers RIM and HTC. Those who were on-hand with us there last year know it’s a fantastic location and we expect this will be yet another really great evening for members of the local mobile community!

John McAndrews - Senior Technical Account Manager - RIM .PPT
John McAndrews joined Research In Motion (RIM), in May 2001, as a Technical Account Manager. With a solid background working with Information Technology Solutions, John brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to assist BlackBerry Enterprise Customers. Currently John is on assignment with Research In Motion Japan LTD to assist clients and partners in analyzing, planning and deploying the BlackBerry solution in corporate environments. Before joining RIM, John worked as a Senior Systems Consultant with Quest Software, primarily with focus on assisting customers in designing/implementing a migration strategy for Microsoft Windows and Exchange 2000. John received his Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Western International University and is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.

Jennifer Chang - General Manager - HTC Nippon K.K. .PPT
HTC Corp. is the world’s leading provider of Microsoft Windows Mobile based smart devices. Founded in 1997 by Cher Wang, Chairwoman, and Peter Chou, President and CEO, HTC made its name as the company behind many of the most popular operator-branded devices on the market. It has established unique partnerships with key mobile brands, including leading global operators. It has also brought products to market with industry leading OEM partners and, since June 2006, under its own HTC brand. Since launching its own brand 12 month ago, the company has introduced more than a dozen HTC-branded products across the world. The company produces powerful handsets that continually push the boundaries to provide true mobility and freedom for those who use its products.

Date: Monday, 12 November 2007 :: 18:30 - 22:00
Venue: Canadian Embassy theatre — GMAP
Admission: ¥1,000 with Advance Registration — OR — ¥2,000 at the door
Complimentary nomi-hodai cocktail bar

18:30 - Doors Open
19:00 - Welcome/introduction
19:15 - First presentation
19:45 - Second presentation
20:15 - Q & A
20:30 - Networking
21:30 - Last Call